


Love, Beds, And Other Strange Human Things

by shippingmyarmada



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Karkat Doesn't Understand Human Things, M/M, Mentions of Panic Attacks, PTSD, Post Game AU, Sadstuck, dumb boys who fill all of each others quadrants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shippingmyarmada/pseuds/shippingmyarmada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John fills all of Karkat's quadrants, and Karkat is perfectly fine with that if it means they get to fall asleep like this every night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love, Beds, And Other Strange Human Things

**Author's Note:**

> This is in an AU where they finish the game but none of the dead trolls come back so the ones who survived return to Earth with the humans.

You slip off your jeans and sweater, shimmying into the bed. Beds are still a weird concept to you, and they definitely don't keep away your nightmares like recooperacoons did, but you sleep in one anyway. After the game ended, everyone returned to earth, so there wasn't any sopor slime to sleep in.

John didn't say anything when you first made your bed into a mess of blankets and all the soft fabrics you could find, just like you didn't say anything when he gripped a stuffed bunny in his sleep instead of you. You both accept each others habits because you know what its like to feel that way.

John slips his pale arms around your waist, no longer surprised to find the raised red scars from the legs you had as a wriggler, no longer afraid to grip to tight, no longer amazed at your lack of what humans call nipples and belly buttons. He hums into your neck, a tune you don't recognize. Maybe, you think, he's composing a new piano piece. He started doing that a lot when it was clear his father wouldn't be coming back.

You don't hold him back, because you are still afraid you will hurt his soft flesh, no matter how many times he reassures you that you won't. Humans aren't as tough as trolls.

Sleep won't be coming to you for a while, this is just a fact of your existence. Maybe it's because of your days in the lab, trying to make sure the horror terrors wouldn't kill you, or maybe it's just because the faces of your friends who didn't make it are burned into the backs of your eyelids.

John has taken to comforting you the only way he knows how, hugging and holding and humming lyrics into your skin. You can't remember when or how you and him became matesprits or boyfriends or whatever you are. It just seemed to fall into place naturally. There was no time for sloppy human/troll makeouts when you first truely met, defeating Lord English was way above that on any list of priorities. No, after everything was over, you had decided that you wanted to try out the kismesis thing with him, and he had decided to give up the heterosexual thing, but you ended up wanting him in all quadrants like a dumbass. He seemed okay with that.

John seemed okay with the way you would tell him you hated him with a burning passion, always laughing at you and making a joke, making you realize that what you had really meant was that you loved him. Well you assumed the feeling you had was love, because it felt the way he described it to you.

The first time John had told you he loved you was when you were curled in a ball of sheets having a break down because of the game.

Everyone had them. Kanaya would sometimes make her way across the street if it was raining and Rose was out, shaking uncontrollably and telling you that she hated the rain because it made her feel things she didn't want to remember. John would sprint to the rooftops when Dave was having an episode, and you would follow, listening to the way John tried to help and watching Dave's lips move without a sound coming out. Terezi would sometimes lay spread-eagled on the cool grass with her glasses flung beside her, and anyone who dared approach her would witness the pale teal tears stream from her red eyes. Sburb had turned everyone into PTSD victims and the only ones who could help.

You hadn't known what love was, and the curiosity pulled you from your comatose to ask him. Love, he had told you, came in many different shapes. He told you that he had loved his dad, that he loved Dave and Rose and Jade, that he loved the salamander that wandered your home. But, he had said, what he felt for you was like a fire in his chest that made him feel at home when he looked at you, the embers deep rooted in his soul were what kept him from doing anything crazy. He told you that love was when you looked at someone and knew you would do anything to see them smile, anything to keep them safe, anything you could to protect them. That love was putting their needs before your own.

You had nodded and looked away from him, because his blue eyes burned you in a way you didn't know was possible.

John's breathing pulls you back to the present. You twist in his arms and put your own around his waist, trying to remember what it was like before the game. What it was like to not be hopelessly flushed for the idiot in front of you. He laughs like he knows what you're thinking and kisses you right on the lips, soft and smooth and perfect.

John once told you and ancient human legend about how a god made people with two heads, four arms and legs, but feared they were too powerful and split them, forcing them to search for their other half forever. In times like these, when you are perfectly folded into John's arms, you remember that story and think that god had a good reason to do that because right now, you think that you and John could conquer the world if you wanted to. It's not like you haven't saved it already or anything.

You still find humans strange, but you wouldn't have wanted to fall for someone other than John Egbert. Different circumstances would've been nice, but you can only ask for so much, apparently. He is perfect, from the way his toes curl to the way his hair flies in the wind; from the infuriating way he giggles at you to the way he wakes you with kisses.

Eventually you fall asleep, still holding him, with thoughts of how you are grateful for once; that even though you went through hell to get here, you sure as hell are grateful for the friends who survived and the stupid boy that fills all your quadrants.


End file.
